As of today, $229,221,158,218.00 has been spent in the War in Iraq. Far worse, at least 2,168 brave American men and women have their lives in our war effort. Officially, 15,881 American soldiers have been gravely wounded.
But the good news is that we are at least going to win this war, right?
Wrong.
The Bush Administration proudly points to the three elections held in Iraq during 2005 as signs of progress, as signs of victory. Indeed, they are signs of progress and victory.
For Iran, though, not America.
The editorial of Iran's leading hard-line daily hailed the outcome of Iraq's parliamentary elections as "the creation of the first Islamist state in the Arab world", and warned against "American plots" to prevent the formation of the new Iraqi government by Iranian-backed Shiite groups.
"Of the 275 seats in Iraq's new parliament, 140 will belong to pious Islamists, 60 will be occupied by Kurds with excellent ties with Iran, and 40 will belong to Sunni Arabs, most of whom want a sovereign, Islamist state", the daily Kayhan's Saturday editorial noted. "The new government - including the President, the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the armed forces and the judiciary - will emerge from this new assembly".
Kayhan said the election outcome will "increase pressures, both inside and outside the U.S., on [President George W.] Bush to withdraw American troops from Iraq". "Bush will have to give in and withdraw the bulk of his forces from Iraq in the next few months", the daily, which reflects the views of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote.
....
"...while the formation of an Islamist state in Iraq, which will be a natural ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will form a contiguous link between Iran and Palestine through Syria and Lebanon, will bring about a sea change in the geo-strategic balance in the region in favour of Iran and to America's detriment. This new alliance with its huge size will directly influence all developments in the Arab and Muslim Middle East".
Kayhan's editorial said American officials' recent statements on election irregularities in Iraq were aimed at forcing the pro-Iranian Shiite groups to give concessions. "They [the Iranian-backed Shiites] will not accept this", the paper wrote.
Just wonderful. So if I have this straight, and if what this Iranian paper says comes to pass, then we shall have spent over 250 billion of our treasure and nearly 2,200 of our youth to create an Islamist state. To create another Iran.
Oh joy.
But it just gets worse from there with respect to the unintended consequences of King George VII's great Iraqi adventure. The Iraq War, when it is all said and done, will have ended America's reign as a superpower.
Normally, I am loath to quote Patrick Buchanan....but I think he is absolutely right on the following:
A new Zogby poll of 3,900 people in six once-friendly Arab nations finds that, when asked to name the leader they detest most, 45 percent named Ariel Sharon, but Bush has moved into second at 30 percent. Tony Blair was a distant third at 3 percent. No one else was close.
Only 6 percent agreed with al-Qaida's goal of a caliphate ruling the Islamic world, and only 7 percent approved of its terrorism - but fully 36 percent admired how al-Qaida "confronts the U.S."
How admired is President Bush? When he urged the Iranians to go to the polls and repudiate the mullahs, they responded by choosing as president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who makes Hashemi Rafsanjani look like Ramsey Clark. When Condi Rice stiffed the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood on a visit to Cairo, the Brotherhood soared in Egyptian eyes and swept to victory in 60 percent of the parliamentary races it contested.
Everywhere today, nationalists burnish their credentials by dissing us. In Canada, Prime Minister Paul Martin seeks to save a scandal-ridden regime by pandering to Canadians' dislike of the United States. Hugo Chavez made himself the toast of South America by flipping off Bush at the Argentine summit. Evo Morales just swept to victory in Bolivia by promising to defy the Americans.
When Bush went to Seoul, he was informed that South Korea is pulling out of Iraq. The U.S. ambassador, who denounced the North as a criminal regime, was told to shut up. East Asia just held its first summit - to which the United States was not invited. The Uzbeks have just told us: Close your airbase, and get out.
Because of charges that we used secret prisons in Europe to interrogate jihadists and E.U. airports to transfer them there, the United States has never been less admired in NATO Europe, nor its president more despised.
Is it not thus apparent the world does not really want an American empire, or American hegemony, or Bush's "democratic revolution"? Is it not equally apparent that we Americans, unwilling to conscript our young or further tax ourselves, cannot sustain a global policy that commits us to defending nations all over this world, most of which do not even like us?
However Iraq ends, the era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall has reached its close. That place in the sun the Greatest Generation won for us, and the Cold War generation kept for us, the baby boomer generation appears to have lost. And perhaps forever.
America needs a new vision. America needs a new foreign policy.
Liberals used to champion interventionist foreign policy with respect to humanitarian, moral and democratic concerns. Remember Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. We used to talk about spreading the wonder of Democracy everywhere. But over the last five years we have seen King George VII steal that foreign policy premise as a justification for the War in Iraq. And now our support for such a foreign policy is gone. With the world against us, with our foreign policy in tatters, with the world more dangerous and radical than ever before due in large part to our actions, what new foreign policy can liberals and Democrats champion?
Is it time to just take care of our own? Is it time for a return to isolationism? Clearly, our role as a superpower is over. We no longer have moral authority. Our financial superiority is suspect. The only thing that gives America world credibility is the strength of our arms, but those are tied up in Iraq. Should it now be time to truly make our homeland secure?
Should liberals and Democrats champion that in 2006 and 2008?